> Otherwise, it can appear as if the developer has a "first one's free" mentality, where the user is now dependent upon broken software and the developer wants to charge for the fix.

I would be willing to be the original “first one’s free” license came with an explicit disclaimer that the software was provided “AS IS”, without any warranty implied or explicit.

So, it seems like it would be on the company for deciding to use the software in a critical way, without having a plan for support.

They should have read the contract.